Samenvatting

Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: CHAPTER III THE PERIOD OF TRANSITION 1618-1806 The first decades of the sixteenth century saw the rise of protestant schools in Germany under the combined influences of the humanists and the reformers. The early TendeuciM oi humanists had sought out the ancient classics for their spirit and content; with an exalted idea of man they found in the old civilization a higher realization of individual freedom than was offered in the mediaeval world. Lutheranism checked the growth of the humanistic movement. It converted intellectual and humanitarian interests into civil and religious interests. It turned man's attention from the life of the past to life in the present as a preparation for the life that is to come. A knowledge of God's word as found in the Greek and Hebrew Scriptures was of paramount importance both in shaping human action in this world and for the adequate appreciation of the glories of the next. Hence an acquaintance with the ancient languages was indispensable, but the pagan literatures of Greece and Rome, much more other records of these corrupt civilizations, were of little value, even if not positively harmful. The protestant schools of Germany, in their zeal for the education of the clergy and the uplifting of the masses, had one pre-eminent aim, the promotion of a better and purer religious life among the people and the salvation of human souls. How well they succeeded in alienating all classes from the Roman Church and establishing them in the protestant faith,is best evidenced in the adoption of schools as the most effective weapons of the Counter Reformation. Sturm could have received no greater compliment than was paid him by the Society of Jesus in incorporating so many of his methods into the new catholic schools. The Jesuits, in employ...